


she'll do me no harm

by sure sure (getoffmysheets)



Series: Red in Tooth and Claw [9]
Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: Billy Hargrove Has a Crush on Steve Harrington, Daemons, Feral Behavior, Good Sibling Maxine "Max" Mayfield, Hurt Billy Hargrove, M/M, Pre-Slash, Steve Harrington is a Sweetheart
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-11-07
Updated: 2019-11-07
Packaged: 2021-01-16 05:07:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,230
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/21265562
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/getoffmysheets/pseuds/sure%20sure
Summary: Her eyes are enormous and round. He's never noticed before, but she's actually pretty adorable. For an animal that could rip off his face.





	she'll do me no harm

**Author's Note:**

> I died twice writing this, okay?

_ **I love little pussy,** _   
_ **Her coat is so warm,** _   
_ **And if I don't hurt her,** _   
_ **She'll do me no harm.** _   
_ **So I'll not pull her tail, ** _   
_ **Nor drive her away,** _   
_ **But pussy and I, ** _   
_ **Very gently will play** _   
  
_ **She shall sit by my side** _   
_ **And I'll give her some food;** _   
_ **And pussy will love me** _   
_ **Because I am good.** _   
_ **I'll pat pretty pussy,** _   
_ **And then she will purr;** _   
_ **And thus show her thanks** _   
_ **For my kindness to her** _   
  
_ **I'll not pinch her ears,** _   
_ **Nor tread on her paw,** _   
_ **Lest I should provoke her** _   
_ **To use her sharp claw.** _   
_ **I never will vex her** _   
_ **Nor make her displeased** _   
_ **For pussy don't like** _   
_ **To be worried and teased.** _

It’s lucky that Nancy was the one to stay behind and Jonathan followed El, because they need Celestis to find her – the lab building in the Upside Down is choked with those creepy vines and the perpetual mist and darkness of the atmosphere make it difficult to navigate with any kind of confidence. It’s only Celestis’ strong night vision that allows them to find their way.

They follow the sound of the strangely pathetic wailing. Now that Steve knows what he’s hearing is a cougar, he’s pinpointed why the sound is so familiar. The noise sounds like the plaintive meowing of a needy housecat – but the voice belongs to a larger body, so the tone comes out rougher and deeper.

It’s sort of funny. After Max’s stories, Steve had a moment of curiosity when sitting with Dustin at the library one day and decided to do the only bit of research he’d ever willingly done in his life and looked up facts about cougars.

He’d assumed that cougars were like…small American lions, he supposed. He ended up surprised to find that they were basically nothing like lions at all, despite being called ‘mountain lions’.

_The cougar – also known the mountain lion, puma, or catamount – though often mistake for one of the ‘big cats’, is the largest members of the lesser cats. Unlike the big cats, the cougar can purr but cannot roar, much like housecats. Like domesticated cats, they will do this when they are content, but may also purr while in pain or even while dying. Also like housecats, they can vocalize growls, hisses, whistles, and chirps, and while they lack the necessary anatomy to roar, they are well-known known for the sound of their ‘scream’. Females are also well-known for the strange sounds they emit while in heat._

_They have large hindlegs for their size, giving them an excellent leaping ability and can clear eighteen feet in a single jump. Though they are not fond of the water the way tigers are, they are adequate swimmers. Their coat is one main color of tawny and can range from a rusty red-orange to nearly gray. _

And Steve had closed the book, reminded of Max telling him about when she flooded the bathroom and Freyja purred atop her the whole night and how the next morning, Billy had a black eye and yelled at her when she asked where he’d got it.

_Right_, he’d thought_. Well then. Cougars purr when they're happy. And when they’re in pain. And when they’re dying. Fantastic! Never telling Max _that.

He isn’t sure what he’s expecting to find here – a Demogorgon that can imitate a cougar? An ordinary wild animal? A…a hallucination? A trap?

Nevertheless, what they do end up finding is…not what he imagined? Better? Worse? It’s hard to say.

Steve knows they’ve found the right place, he can feel it in his gut. He doesn’t recognize where they are anymore, but the ground has collapsed, rubble littering the ground around them. The wailing cougar sound comes from with the dip where the earth has caved in and when they peer in-

“_Raaarh_,” Freyja cries, hunched close to the ground, staring back up at them. She looks…sort of washed out. Greyish. Like the Upside Down has leached away some of her golden color. All four of her paws are covered in what is either mud, blood, or a combination of the two.

“Oh,” Artie breathes, just as stunned as he is. “It’s really her.”

Before Steve can radio to Max, Nancy catches his hand. “Steve,” Celestis says quietly. “I can’t see Billy.”

“Freyja,” Artemis calls, hesitantly approaching the edge. “Freyja, where’s your Billy?”

“_Raaarh_,” she chirps. Steve’s heart starts to sink as he and Nancy descend down the slope toward her. “_Raaarh_.”

“Nancy,” he says slowly. “You don’t think that’s she’s…and they’re-?”

“It’s hard to tell,” she says, immediately picking up on his worries. “Intercision normally requires a...a physical blade made of a special material. And it isn’t supposed to work on a daemon that’s already settled – it will just kill both subjects. Even unsettled daemons won’t survive longer than a few weeks, at best. But…this is the Upside Down, Steve. I’m not sure the rules of our world apply.”

Freyja watches them approach, letting out one of those sad raspy chirps every now and then. Her eyes are enormous and round, her dilated pupils in the weak lighting making her look a little like a cartoon drawing of a cat. He's never really noticed before, but she's actually pretty adorable. You know…for an animal that could and probably _would_ rip off his face.

“Freyja,” he says softly. “Can you tell me about Max, Freyja?”

If there’s one thing he’s learned about the two of them, it’s that they adore Max.

She chirps at him with her big sorrowful eyes. Christ, even her beautiful eyes look they've started bleaching out. Like instead of turning to dust, Freyja actually began fading away.

“Shit,” Steve whispers, cautiously approaching her. Freyja’s body language isn’t particularly encouraging, but he can’t leave her here. He can’t tell Max that they just abandoned her to the Upside Down because Freyja went feral. “Hey, Freyja. Hey, baby. Are you a nice baby?”

“Steve,” Nancy hisses, watching him sidle up to her to in horror. “Steve, what are you doing? She can take your arm off!”

Freyja blinks at him, and then begins purring, a low continuous drone that sounds rather like a distant airplane. She’s doesn’t seem to be dying or in pain, which means that she’s…happy? Maybe she recognizes him?

“Are you a nice baby?” he repeats, ignoring Nancy. He holds his hand out tentatively, inviting her to touch him, though a part of him dreads being connected to Billy Hargrove. Another part of him dreads not finding any connection at all on the other side. “Can you say hello, Freyja?”

Immediately, she nudges his hand with her face.

Artemis whines unhappily, tail dropping between her legs. “Artie,” Nancy says, alarmed, “Artie, what’s wrong?”

“He’s all numb,” she whimpers, cowering back against Nancy’s jean-clad legs. “Everywhere, he’s just…numb.”

Steve is still whispering to Freyja, petting all over her neck now, part of him subconsciously trying to coax a reaction from her human – any response at all – to his touch. “Good baby, good baby, Freyja’s a good baby girl.” She eases from her defensive crouch to rub her face right up against his hip. Like an overlarge housecat. “Where’s your Billy, baby girl? Hm? Where is he?”

Freyja purrs thunderously, a vibration Steve can feel from his scalp to his toes since she’s practically plastered to his side. She seems rather desperate for the attention and he feels a pang of sympathy for how alone she must’ve felt, being trapped here, so isolated that they’ve descended into a state that barely recalls their humanity.

Artie says “Billy” very softly, breathless and worried. _Look down, Steve_.

A glance down shows him what Artie has already noticed. Coaxing Freyja away from her spot has revealed the torso of a man, the legs hidden by vines and the head hidden by rubble that’s fallen into the sunken in hole. Steve has spent enough time in gym to know what Billy Hargrove’s abdominals look like, but it’s the glimmer of metal between the pecs that really gives it away.

“Such a good girl, Freyja,” he coos, kissing her between the eyes. “You guarded your boy the whole time, didn’t you?”

“Max,” Nancy says, hand shaking on the talk button. “Max, we’ve got him.”

Nancy is a fucking trooper, but she can’t help him carry a grown man back to the gate. They have to wait for Jonathan to circle back to them and then it’s touch and go – Freyja’s benevolence toward Steve doesn’t seem to apply to anyone else and she becomes rather testy about Jonathan trying to touch Billy.

“I’m not saying that you need to hurry up, _Sentinel_,” Robin says over the radio. “I’m saying _hurry the fuck up_. El is losing blood and Brigantia looks more like a ghost than a girl. If you make me go in there, you’re not gonna like it, dingus.”

“We’re on our way,” Nancy promises, with a concerned look at Jonathan and Steve over her shoulder. Steve is holding Billy beneath the shoulders, and Jonathan has him by the ankles. His heart is still beating, his lungs work fine, but Artemis has already said that his body is completely numb and he shows no reaction to any handling.

Jonathan actually doesn’t seem worried about that. “It’s the Upside Down effect,” he says, grunting as the four of them have to ascend a hill. “Will says that it kind of…makes everything a little dead, in your mind. The Mindflayer makes it even worse, too. Probably why Freyja’s gone a bit out of it.”

“You don’t think it’s permanent?” Artie asks, nudging the cougar a little. She’s still purring slightly and she chuffs at Artie, but it doesn't seem like a hostile sound. 

“Probably not, but the first step is to get them away from here.”

Steve comes to the conclusion that Robin might be a sorceress of some kind, because somehow, while he and Jonathan are getting Billy into a guest bed at Casa de Harrington, she talks Max out of sneaking away from her house at 3 am and walking through the empty town and dark woods to his house. "First thing in the morning, Max, I'll borrow Steve's fancy ass ride and come to pick you up and then you can be with him."

"Can Steve do it?" It was no secret that Steve was the favorite for both Dustin and Max. Robin was generally favored by the Sinclairs the most and Mike and Will naturally preferred their own older siblings. Though in Max's case, Steve had the feeling he was gonna receive a rapid demotion to second place, not that he minded too much.

He was about to assure Max that he would absolutely do that when Robin answers for him.

"Honey, your mom and stepdad aren't gonna let you get in the car by yourself with an adult man at the crack of dawn," she says gently.

Oh. Yeah, that's probably a good point. It's hard for him to remember, a lot of the time, that that's the way the outside world sees him with El and Max. Steve doesn't feel like he should be fucking them, he feels like he should be sitting down for a tea party with them - they're little girls, cute and giggly and innocent with childhood. But he can see why someone looking from the outside would freak out.

"One of us will be with him the whole night," he says instead. "He and Freyja won't be alone for a second, Max. Robin will be there to pick you up in just a few hours."

Max sounds like she's wiping her face. She's been crying, on and off, since they realized the sound was Freyja. "Okay. Does he...he looks okay? He isn't...bleeding or anything?"

"Not a scratch on him," Steve promises.

Jonathan says that it's important to keep them warm, to wake them back up, so Billy has been tucked beneath the blankets. Nancy is trying to keep her eyes open in an armchair next to the bed while Freyja watches her and Celestis with narrowed eyes, laying parallel to Billy above the covers. An odd feeling hits him when Freyja sees him and immediately begins purring again, eyes squinting closed at him.

"I got it, Nance. You and Jonathan and Rob can get some sleep."

"Are you sure?" She asks, lowering the novel she was reading, though she can barely keep her eyes open.

He shrugs. "Yeah, I got it. She seems to not hate me at least."

Washing her off had been something of a slapstick comedy, since Freyja didn't throw a fit about the water but she was Very Concerned that Steve wasn't petting her. 

Artemis hops onto the end of bed, settling over the blankets where Billy's feet are. "If she loses total control of herself, I am the only one who could contain her," she says, matter of factly. "Without killing her."

Ithunna was capable of subduing anything but a Demogorgon, but her venom was fatal. Steve isn't sure that Jonathan would be willing to kill anyone, even if his life was danger. 

"Alright," Nancy lets Celestis settle his talons around her wrist and leaves her book on the end table. "Um...bark if you need anything, I guess?" 

"Ha ha," Steve says dryly, rolling his eyes, though he gives her a fond smile.

He waits for Nancy to leave the room before approaching the bed. Freyja immediately stands as he comes within a few feet of her. _"Raarh,"_ she pleads, with her huge cartoon eyes. _"Raarh!"_

Steve laughs slightly. "And how are you, ma'am?" He rubs her velvety ears. "Hm, are you lonely, Freyja-kitty? What's wrong with your boy, huh? What's wrong with your Billy, Freyja-baby? How should we help him?" 

She purrs at him, eagerly rubbing her face over Steve's hands and arms. "Okay, okay," he murmurs, "I get it. Hold your horses." 

He settles himself on the opposite side of the bed - his feet at the head and his head beside Artie because Steve feels weird about laying in a bed with Billy Hargrove's comatose body, looking a little too much like a corpse for his comfort. As soon as he's flat on the bed, Freyja is all over him, headbutting his chest, and flopping down on top of him. 

"Oof," Steve laughs, wrapping his arms around her neck to scratch her behind the ears. "A big girl." 

The purring feels a little like a full body massage and Steve feels himself sort of melt back into the mattress with a sigh. He's touched the fur of a taxidermy deer at his uncle's house, which is the closest thing he's ever felt to touching her. Her fur is denser, the skin looser, especially at the back of her neck.

She's got scars at the front of her neck - Steve never noticed that before, the runic gold collar had always covered it. It has him wondering if that was the reason Billy put it on her - for both protection and makeup. God, that must've _hurt._ Right at the neck like that, Billy must've felt like he was gonna die. 

"Baby, baby," he coos, gently sweeping his fingers over the marks and up to her wide cheekbones. He thinks maybe some of the greenish color in her eyes is starting to return. "Such a good baby. Aren't you, Freyja-kitty?"

She headbutts him in the chest, the volume of her purrs increasing. Steve grins. He's always liked cats, and her demanding insistence isn't exactly a hardship. "Such a flirt. You don't get much attention, do you, baby?" he muses. "Billy needs to find himself a girlfriend, that way you get a cuddle now and then." 

"Steve," Artemis says near his ear. "Tammy Thompson."

"Tammy-? Oh." Steve blinks and brushes his hand across the back of her neck. He remembers El's blurted out confession the day of Billy's - apparently premature - burial. Sheepishly, he says "Well, a boyfriend, then. Someone to give her a petting if Billy's too _cool_ for hugs."

With the hint of a pout, Artemis says "You don't give me this much attention." 

Never pausing his motion of rubbing Freyja behind the ears, Steve snorts. "You sleep in my arms every night, Artie. And you have a dozen people wanting to pet you at every hour of the day. Half the time, I swear the kids only wanna see me because of you."

Sounding rather genuinely hurt, Artie says "Don't say that."

"Aw, Artie," he sighs, removing one of his hands to ruffle her marbled coat. "If you're getting jealous, I'll stop."

She cocks her head. Steve once again experiences the uncomfortable feeling that Artemis now knows something he does not. Not surprising, as he's a bit of an idiot. "Don't say that either," she says, even more wounded. "It's...it's okay. I'm not jealous. Really." 

He's not completely convinced, but everything that comes out of his mouth seems to upset her right now. 

When Steve falls asleep, Freyja is still half-draped over his chest and Artemis rests alongside Billy's body. Thankfully for his bladder, when he wakes up, the daemons have reversed their positions.

Freyja has...well, the blanket is ruined but that's sort of his fault, anyway. They shouldn't have tucked Billy into the blankets quite so tightly. Freyja must've wanted to get closer to Billy's bare skin in the night and now she rests on his chest. How she managed to destroy the sheet without waking Steve is a mystery. Artemis has curled up against Steve's back on the other side of him, her fluffy tail draped over his belly. 

"Shower?" Artie whispers, lightly pressing her cold wet nose to the top of his spine.

He doesn't flinch - it's the way she's greeted him since the day she settled. "Mhm."

"Have to get out of the bed, Steve."

"Mhm," he repeats, but he rolls toward the edge, thumping inelegantly to the carpet.

Billy doesn't open his eyes until the shower turns on.

Freyja buries her face into his chest. "I'm sorry, Billy," she says, mournful. "I'm so sorry, I didn't mean to." 

_Baby, baby, such a good baby_. Billy feels himself start blushing for the first time since he was like, twelve.

"He was so warm. He was so _kind_," Freyja whimpers, utterly ashamed her behavior. "I shouldn't've - I'm sorry."

It was really the worst sort of torture - Billy doesn't really catch any emotion behind the experience, but he can clearly feel the psychical sensations of Steve touching her. Freyja was right. He was warm. He was kind. Billy flings an arm over his eyes as they sting and burn. Between that and some of his last coherent memories - bleach and antifreeze in his mouth, a gelatinous goo that used to be people, terrorizing a group of helpless children, dragging around a little girl like a ragdoll, _hitting_ Max - Billy half wishes he really was dead. And his daemon, desperate for the attention of the boy he loved.

"Not your fault," he says hoarsely. His inability to control his emotions have never been down to her. "You couldn't help it, Valfreyja." 

His hands stroked along the same pathways Steve's hands had taken. _What's wrong with your boy, huh? What's wrong with your Billy, Freyja-baby? How should we help him?_

**Author's Note:**

> Since everyone is already settled, I can show off the photos!: https://carol-effing-danvers.tumblr.com/tagged/red-in-tooth-and-claw


End file.
